Curated playlist
Chemical elements
- NitrogenNitrogen, the gas in most of every breath, killed two shuttle technicians in 1981. It fills about 78% of Earth's air.
- OxygenOxygen makes up almost half of the Earth's crust, yet for most of human history nobody knew it existed.
- EuropiumEuropium is a metal so soft you can slice it with a kitchen knife. It also glows red inside color television screens.
- ChromiumThe same element that makes rubies red also makes emeralds green. That element is chromium, first isolated in 1797.
- NickelNickel the metal is named after a mischievous sprite from German miner folklore.
- DysprosiumDysprosium got its name from a Greek word meaning "hard to get." A chemist needed over thirty tries in 1886.
- MolybdenumMolybdenum got its name from the Greek word for lead by mistake. For centuries its ores were confused with lead ores.
- ZincAncient brass makers had no idea they were using zinc. The zinc metal vaporized in copper furnaces before anyone saw it.
- BerkeliumBerkelium, a metal that exists nowhere in nature, helped create tennessine in 2009.
- ZirconiumReactor makers must remove hafnium from zirconium because hafnium absorbs neutrons 600 times faster.
- CadmiumCadmium was found in all 28 dark chocolate brands Consumer Reports tested in 2022.
- CeriumPrimo Levi bartered a stash of lighter-flint alloy for food at Auschwitz.
- PotassiumPotassium is a metal soft enough to slice with a kitchen knife. Dropped in water, it bursts into a lilac-colored flame.
- TerbiumTwo elements, erbium and terbium, have had their names switched since the 1800s. Nobody has corrected it.
- TitaniumTitanium was first spotted as black sand that stuck to a magnet. A Cornish clergyman noticed it in 1791.
- YtterbiumIn 2013, two ytterbium atomic clocks set a record for stability.
- AluminiumAluminium is the most abundant metal in Earth's crust, yet for most of history no one had seen any.
- LeadPencil leads have never contained lead. The graphite inside was simply named plumbago.
- IndiumIn 1863, a bright blue line led two German chemists to find indium. One of them was color-blind.
- LanthanumLanthanum is named for the Greek word for "lie hidden". Carl Gustaf Mosander found it in 1839 inside cerium nitrate.
- NiobiumNiobium was so much like tantalum that top chemists could not tell them apart.
- PlatinumSpanish colonizers once dismissed platinum as an impurity in gold. An official decree even banned mixing it into gold.
- PraseodymiumPraseodymium spent decades hidden inside a supposed element called didymium. An Austrian chemist split it in 1885.
- CaliforniumIn 1950, four Berkeley physicists fired particles at curium and made about 5,000 atoms of californium.
- UraniumNature ran nuclear reactors on uranium 1.7 billion years ago. Fifteen were found at the Oklo mine in Gabon.
- HeliumHelium was found in sunlight 27 years before anyone isolated it on Earth.
- ManganeseIn 1972 the CIA used manganese mining as cover for a secret ship mission.
- Mercury (element)Over 3,000 people suffered deformities, severe poisoning or death from mercury dumped in Minamata Bay.
- HydrogenHydrogen makes up about 75% of normal matter, yet nobody recognized it until the 1760s.
- BerylliumBeryllium, a metal that can kill people who breathe its dust, forms mirrors in the James Webb Space Telescope.
- ArgonArgon fills about one in every hundred breaths, yet no one knew it was there until 1894.
- ArsenicArsenic was called the inheritance powder because it was used to kill relatives for a fortune.
- CobaltCobalt got its name from German miners who blamed a goblin. The blue ore gave them no silver.
- AmericiumIn 1994, a 17-year-old took americium from roughly 100 smoke detectors.
- BariumBarium was first noticed in glowing stones near Bologna, Italy. The pebbles glowed in the dark for years.
- ErbiumErbium, a rare metal, turns water rose-pink when its ions dissolve. It is used inside fiber-optic cables.
- NeodymiumNeodymium hid inside another metal for decades. Chemists took it for one element, didymium, until 1885.
- RutheniumIn 1844, Karl Ernst Claus isolated ruthenium from platinum left over from minting ruble coins.
- ScandiumScandium is about as common in Earth's crust as cobalt. Yet only 15 to 20 tonnes of its oxide are traded a year.
- SeleniumA horseradish smell led chemist Berzelius to the element selenium in 1817. He named it after the Moon.
- VanadiumA mineralogist found vanadium in 1801, then dropped his claim when a French chemist said he was wrong.
- YttriumA Swedish village called Ytterby lent its name to four chemical elements. It began with one heavy black rock.
- EinsteiniumEinsteinium, element 99, was first found in the cloud from a hydrogen bomb test. The Ivy Mike blast came in 1952.
- OganessonOganesson, element 118 with the symbol Og, is the heaviest atom known, and its namesake was unimpressed by the honor. In a 2019 interview, the physicist Yuri Oganessian was asked how it felt to see his name in the periodic table beside…
- IronThe earliest iron tools were hammered from rocks that fell from the sky.
- SilverThe Phoenicians found so much silver in Spain that it would not fit on their ships.
- GadoliniumGadolinium is toxic as a free ion, yet doctors inject it into veins. A protective wrapping makes it safe enough for MRI.
- CalciumPure calcium metal burns skin the moment you touch it. Yet the same element holds your skeleton together.
- MagnesiumWater makes burning magnesium burn worse. The metal rips water apart, releasing hydrogen gas that feeds the flame.
- PalladiumFord lost nearly one billion US dollars after stockpiling palladium during a Russian supply panic.